Masque Temps
by Abe Lincoln Lover
Summary: A man in a mask. A seven year old detective. A phantom thief. An organization that stops at nothing. The lives of these people will entwine and a story will unfold with a plot never seen before. On hiatus, sorry!


**Masque Temps**

**- Chapter 1 -**

**Omniscient POV**

Death came ever so swiftly, gently caressing his face first with its cold touch before enveloping his body with its icy grip. Slowly his eyes closed, and as he lay there, in the coffin, he smiled as the life drained out of him. Death held no fear for him. Soon he would be far from the wretched place called Earth, forever out of the reach of peoples' stares. It would last an eternity, and that eternity had not started yet. The man breathed in for his final time, and as he breathed out...

He awoke from his dream, and sat up straight, carefully eyeing the room around him. As he sneered at the wall to his side, he brooded over the dream he had had, wishing desperately for that hour when he would draw his last breath. It was going to be soon, he knew, because his opera "Don Juan Triumphant" had just one aria left to be finished. Clearing his mind with a blink, the man set to work.

There was no point for him to live anymore. _That _had left him three weeks earlier with her fiancee, the Vicomte de Chagny. Enraged, he stood and slammed on the piano's delicate keys in a fury. A loud wail came from it, and he lifted his hands in remorse. The wail still echoed through the air, though, and he found that his foot stood dutifully on the pedal. Stepping off did nothing to clear it from his mind, and he found that it pounded in his head as a painful reminder of his sorrow.

_Christine, O beautiful Christine! Why have you left your poor Erik in such distress?_

Answers flooded in, as if that simple question had destroyed the dam that kept the poisonous water away. He tried to ignore them, but they found their ways around his shields and permeated through to his thoughts. Raising his hands to his head, he pressed his skeletal fingers against his skull, desperately trying to find a way to stop the intrusion. A pounding headache formed quickly, and soon he walked to the very wall he sneered at. Positioning himself in front of it, he whacked his head against the wall in a maddened state of mind. A venomous voice egged him on, and the disillusioned man continued mercilessly.

Hours and hours passed by, each hour showing more splatters of blood on the stone. After several hours, though, the man collapsed in pain and fell into unconsciousness. His heart slowed down, his breathing became labored, and finally...

His eyes opened. Daylight streamed through the windows. He briefly wondered about the light, but turned his thoughts to more important things. Had he really just attempted suicide? The pain in his head answered with a forceful **yes**. Sitting up, he allowed himself a glance around the room. Two doors. But there was something else that caught his eye. Trying to figure out what it could possibly be, he observed the bedside table, the bed itself, the tan rug, the dark armoire... and then he spotted it. Flowered wallpaper. Rather strange for a man, so he concluded that he was in a woman's room. Or perhaps a guest room. But why? Why would anyone spare a room for him? It wasn't like he was worthy of it, anyway.

A sudden throb in his head brought him back to reality. Instinctively he brought his hands up to massage his temple, where he found thick bandages rapped around his skull. He felt sick as he realized that the whole event had taken place without his mask on – why would he need it on in the comfort of his own home? - and it still was not on his face. His pallor changed rapidly from unhealthy yellow to snow white.

Stressed, he laid back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. A soft breeze blew on his cheek, and calmly, he fell asleep. Little did he know that something was lurking behind the door, something that, in the wrong hands, could be the most dangerous and destructive invention in the world.

However, the creator of that machine was a sane, intelligent, good man, with no intention to use it for evil deeds. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The inventor's name was Nadir Khan, a Persian man who had "retired" from his situation as Daroga of Mazandaran. He stood, ear pressed against the door to his guest room, listening for any sounds that would reveal his friend's state of consciousness – or unconsciousness – but upon hearing nothing for the past few minutes, gave up and left to make tea.

Monsieur Khan's friend was named Erik. He had no surname – or at least none that he knew of. At birth, his mother had loathed him, called him a failure, hoped that he was dead. Only because of the priest that had been called there was he allowed to live. Why? Because Erik was born without a nose, lips, eyebrows, normal eye color, or normal body fat. His skin was thin and was stretched so tightly over his bones that each vein was visible. Worst of all, he was a genius.

From the moment he was born, he was not a baby. He was simply a monster, and was treated that way. For twenty or so years he traveled the world to satisfy his knowledge. In Rome he was apprenticed to a master stonemason. In Russia, he performed magic. In Persia, he served the sultana as her personal entertainer. After those many years, he returned to his native country of France and assisted in building the Paris Opera House. He took residence in the lowest cellar and built a house there, and did the worst thing someone like him could do.

He fell in love.

The girl was very pretty, but she sang like a crow. Out of love, Erik taught her to sing like an angel from above, and soon the girl was Prima Donna. She fell in love with a man of noble status – a Vicomte – and after a not-so-pleasurable meeting with Erik, the two were married, leaving Erik alone in his cellar under the Opera House.

The book Gaston Leroux wrote had ended with that. But no, that's not the end. That is just the beginning of a much larger tale. There is much more to it. For this tale to begin, though, you need to know this:

After one week of sleeping, Erik's eyes finally opened again, and he had made a full recovery.


End file.
